CHANCES OF PASSAGE ARE LOOKING DECENT: GOP Senators unanimous in support for tax bill. If they can pass this, they will have delivered on numerous campaign promises, including the ObamaCare mandate repeal that looked like it was never going to happen.
Archive for 2017
December 15, 2017
THE INSTA-WIFE: Was Dan Johnson’s Death a High-Tech Lynching?
PAUL KRUGMAN ON ELECTION NIGHT: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
CNBC, tonight: Stocks close at all-time highs as odds of tax bill passing increase.
GO LONG ON PURELL: Health Department says the flu is running rampant in New York.
“Look, I just feel like we’re having a really unfair conversation here, I’m trying to have a conversation on the merits of the principle of unintended consequences,” Velshi whined. “And you’re dropping a lot of legal-ese.”
“The legal-ese is the merits though, Ali,” McDowell asserted. “That’s what’s at play here, and maybe you haven’t read these laws.”
“I’m very familiar with net neutrality,” Velshi snarked back. “I’m really not that familiar with being condescended to.”
Because it’s absolutely impossible to out-smug an MSNBC anchor. Read and/or watch the whole thing.
GENE EPSTEIN: Where Is Nat Turner?
YOUR PIXELS, PLEASE: Germany starts facial recognition tests at rail station.
As Mark Steyn wrote last year regarding Angela Merkel, “You can take the girl out of East Germany, but you can’t take the East Germany out of the girl.”
LORD OF THE RINGS DIRECTOR PETER JACKSON: YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE THE WEINSTEINS BLACKBALLED ASHLEY JUDD AND MIRA SORVINO.
What makes this even more compelling is the relative stature of both women in the entertainment industry. Judd’s mother and sister had risen to the top of the country charts before her Hollywood career had taken off; Sorvino’s father Paul is a popular actor who appeared in classic films such as Goodfellas. Sorvino herself had won an Oscar and a Golden Globe two years before this took place for Mighty Aphrodite. If Weinstein could derail their careers with a smear campaign, how many other actresses and whistleblowers of lesser stature got blackballed out of the industry?
The pull-quote making the rounds from Jackson’s interview with Stuff is “My experience, when Miramax controlled the Lord of the Rings (before New Line took over production of the film), was of Weinstein and his brother behaving like second-rate Mafia bullies.”
Second-rate Mafia bullies? Shades of the circa 2000 incident the late David Carr described in New York magazine:
“You know what? It’s good that I’m the fucking sheriff of this fucking lawless piece-of-shit town.” Weinstein said that to Andrew Goldman, then a reporter for the New York Observer, when he took him out of a party in a headlock last November after there was a tussle for Goldman’s tape recorder and someone got knocked in the head. Weinstein deputized himself and insisted that Goldman apologize. His hubris would be hilarious if he weren’t able to back it up. Several paparazzi got pictures of the tussle, but Goldman bet me at the time that they would never see print.
I mailed him his dollar a week later. I’d talk to Goldman about it, except he now works for Talk magazine, which is half-owned by Miramax.
I’m pretty sure that David Chase didn’t create Tony Soprano to be a how-to guide for career advancement. Though as with Mad Men, I wonder how many of the incidents shown in that series were inspired by Hollywood itself.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW OF THE LAST JEDI: Star Wars Thrill Ride Takes the Force in an Exciting New Direction.
PEAK 2017 REACHED: Entire Family Turns Transgender.
The 21st century isn’t working out the way I had hoped, to coin an Insta-phrase.
FASTER? PLEASE! Super-fast aircraft with Mach 2.2 speed in the making: Japan Airlines collaborates with Boom.
In what would speed up Boom Technology’s dream of making supersonic passenger jet, Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced its strategic partnership with the company. The new-generation superfast aircraft will travel at the speed of Mach 2.2 (1,451 mph / 2,335 km/h), which is more than double the speed of the average airliner (Mach 0.85).
Japan Airlines has agreed to invest $10 million in Boom besides helping to refine the aircraft design and has the option to purchase up to 20 Boom aircraft through a pre-order arrangement.
“We are very proud to be working with Boom on the possible advancement in the commercial aviation industry. Through this partnership, we hope to contribute to the future of supersonic travel with the intent of providing more ‘time’ to our valued passengers while emphasizing flight safety,” said Yoshiharu Ueki, President of Japan Airlines, in a statement obtained by PRNewswire.
“Ninety minutes from New York to Paris” has a nice ring to it.
AT AMAZON, Lightning Deal, Everlasting Comfort 100% Pure Memory Foam Back Cushion – Orthopedic Design for Back Pain Relief.
E-COMMERCE WARS: Target acquires Shipt, will roll out $99/year, same-day delivery.
VARIETY: DUSTIN HOFFMAN ACCUSED OF EXPOSING HIMSELF TO A MINOR, ASSAULTING TWO WOMEN.
Better pick up your copy of The Graduate on Blu-Ray now; though I am looking forward to seeing the likely upcoming version in which Christopher Plummer is CGIed in as Benjamin Braddock…
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: Erdogan Says Muslim nations to seek UN ‘annulment’ of Trump’s Jerusalem move.
“FBI appears to have investigated – and considered prosecuting – FOIA requesters“: Investigative reporting blog and FOIA tool provider Muckrock shows that as far back as 2016, the FBI refused to produce documents that had the names of deceased FBI staff (nullifying any privacy concerns), but consistently failed to redact personal information about the requesters — a clear violation of privacy:
“Despite redacting the names and email addresses of the public servants handling the case, the FBI released not only the author’s name and address in the file (technically improper since there was no waiver, albeit understandable) but the name, email address and home address of another requester who also used the script to file requests. Their name along with their email and physical addresses were left unredacted not once, not twice, not thrice – but seven times, not including the email headers, several of which also showed their name and email address.”
Other emails show that the FBI’s Obama-era FOIA office consulted a number of people from the Criminal Justice Information Services division for the purpose of singling out “suspicious” FOIA requests for possible prosecution targeting.
I’d love to know what they considered a “suspicious” FOIA request.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: As wineglasses get larger, people drink more wine.
AT AMAZON, today’s the last day for free shipping with delivery before Christmas.
Plus, STEM Toys for Kids.
TOO BAD FOR THEM THAT BOTS AND SOCKPUPPETS DON’T HAVE THE VOTE: Dems Vow to Take Net Neutrality to SCOTUS, Make FCC Move a Midterm Issue.
FROM MY COLLEAGUE MAURICE STUCKE, AND OXFORD’S ARIEL EZRACHI, IN THE HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the U.S. Antitrust Movement.